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Der Lutheraner
The first president of the Missouri Synod worked long and hard to restore a common historic liturgy to the church when so many churches were following their own devices. C. F. W. Walther's efforts received some negative feedback. He responded in a publication that he edited for many years: Der Lutheraner, as in this example, translated from the July 19, 1853 issue, volume 9, number 24, page 163.
Whenever the divine service once again follows the old Evangelical - Lutheran agendas (or church books), it seems that many raise a great cry that it is “Roman Catholic”: “Roman Catholic” when the pastor chants “The Lord be with you” and the congregation responds by chanting “and with thy spirit”; “Roman Catholic” when the pastor chants the collect and the blessing and the people respond with a chanted “Amen”.
Even the simplest Christian can respond to this outcry: “Prove to me that this chanting is contrary to the Word of God, then I too will call it ‘Roman Catholic’ and have nothing more to do with it. However, you cannot prove this to me.”
If you insist upon calling every element in the divine service “Romish” that has been used by the Roman Catholic Church, it must follow that the reading of the Epistle and Gospel is also “Romish.” Indeed, it is mischief to sing or preach in church, for the Roman Church has done this also...
Those who cry out should remember that the Roman Catholic Church possesses every beautiful song of the old orthodox church. The chants and antiphons and responses were brought into the church long before the false teachings of Rome crept in. This Christian Church since the beginning, even in the Old Testament, has derived great joy from chanting...
For more than 1700 years orthodox Christians have participated joyfully in the divine service. Should we, today, carry on by saying that such joyful participation is “Roman Catholic”? God forbid!
Therefore, as we continue to hold and to restore our wonderful divine services in places where they have been forgotten, let us boldly confess that our worship forms do not tie us with the modern sects or with the church of Rome; rather, they join us to the one, holy Christian Church that is as old as the world and is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
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Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Just a friendly reminder - both before and during the Divine Service, talking in the church itself should be kept to an absolute minimum.
Many people use the time before the service to meditate on the Word of God and prepare for worship and the reception of Holy Communion. Extraneous conversations should not distract from this.
And during the service itself, even during the offering or the Lord's Supper, indiscriminate talking should not take place. For we are in the very presence of the Lord, taking part in His holy liturgy. The words we speak are the ones He Himself has given us. Outside of that, the words of Habakkuk 2:20 apply: “But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
The hymn puts it this way:
“Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in his hand
Christ our God to earth descending
Comes our homage to demand.”
Therefore before the service, please enjoy conversations with one another in the narthex and not in the pews or the back of the church. Of course, following the service, after you have received the benediction of the Lord, feel free to greet and speak with one another as you depart from the Lord's house, be it in the church itself or in the Parish Hall afterwards. We do not want to become a "cold" congregation, but one that shows the highest honor to the Lord and His Word and Sacraments.
We can be both reverent and friendly at the same time!
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The following is excerpted from the January, 1996 issue
of The Lutheran Witness, pp. 12-14.
Confession and Absolution
More and more, broken sinners are finding God's peace and healing through private confession and absolution.
by John T. Pless
Have you ever gone to your pastor for private confession and absolution? “Isn't that Roman Catholic?” some might answer. “Didn't Luther and the Reformation do away with all that?” There are other responses, too. The claim, “I can confess my sin directly to God,” is used as justification for neglecting private confession. Or, the old Adam might claim that it is the height of arrogance for a pastor to say, “I forgive you your sins,” because “only God can forgive sins.”
The Lutheran Confessions, which set forth the teaching of Holy Scripture and explain what Lutherans believe, say otherwise. “It is taught among us,” says the Augsburg Confession, for example, “that private absolution should be retained and not allowed to fall into disuse.” Martin Luther was no less adamant in the Large Catechism: “If you are a Christian, you should be glad to run more than a hundred miles for confession, not under compulsion but rather coming and compelling us [pastors] to offer it . . . Therefore, when I urge you to go to confession, I am simply urging you to be a Christian.”
Current wisdom says that people need affirmation, not absolution. David Wells, a prominent observer of contemporary church life, laments that churches have exchanged Biblical reality for “therapeutic models” that “tend to shy away from the concept of sin, or at least to tame it by calling it sickness instead.” Yet the Lutheran Confessions keep us from falling prey to a culture that denies the reality of sin, the need for repentance and the gift of forgiveness. Our Confessions will not let us forget that psychological therapy, for example, as helpful as it sometimes is, can never be a substitute for the Gospel. We are called back to the basics of sin and grace, repentance and faith, confession and absolution.
The Reformation can be characterized as a struggle over the doctrine of repentance. Luther recognized this early on. In the first of the Ninety-Five Theses, he writes, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent’ (Matt. 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther reacted against Rome's doctrine of repentance as an occasional activity in which Christians were required to participate from time to time. He taught that repentance was the natural rhythm of the Christian's life as the Christian daily returns to baptismal death and resurrection. Repentance is more than “feeling sorry for your sins.” According to the Augsburg Confession, “True repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow or terror, on account of sin, and yet at the same time to believe the Gospel or absolution (namely, that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ).” It continues, “and this faith will comfort the heart and again set it at rest. Amendment of life and the forsaking of sin should then follow, for these must be the fruits of repentance, as John says, ‘Bear fruit that befits repentance’ (Matt.3:8).”
With a perverted understanding of repentance, it is no wonder that Rome had also twisted private confession, making it a tool of terror rather than a gracious gift of the Gospel. In the medieval Roman church, private confession was made a requirement of the faithful. Meeting in 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council legislated that “every believer of either gender, after he has arrived at the age of discretion, should himself confess all his sins faithfully at least once a year to his own priest.” As a young monk, Luther faithfully followed the Council's directive. He confessed his sins to his father confessor. But Luther was troubled with uncertainty. Had he sincerely confessed? Had he confessed all of his sins? He was left without the comfort and consolation of the forgiveness of sins. As he came to know the Gospel, Luther saw Rome's use of private confession as a “slaughter of souls.” The sheer gift of the forgiveness of sins in absolution had been replaced by an oppressive demand that sins be enumerated in detail. Confession was made a matter of law, not Gospel.
Confession exists for the sake of the absolution, the pronouncement of forgiveness. Thus, Luther writes in the Large Catechism, “We urge you, however, to confess and express your needs, not for the purpose of performing a work but to hear what God has to say to you. The Word or absolution, I say, is what you should concentrate on, magnifying and cherishing it as a great and wonderful treasure to be accepted with all praise and gratitude.” Private confession does not consist in enumerating all the sins one has committed. Psalm 19:12, “Who can discern his errors?,” is quoted by the Augsburg Confession to demonstrate that recalling and naming all sins would be impossible. Neither do we come to private confession to wallow in self-pity, complain about our sins, or “to get something off my chest.” Rather, we come to confession that we might lay our sins before God and “receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven” (Small Catechism).
Absolution is nothing less than the very voice of God Himself. Article XXV expands article XII: “We also teach that God requires us to believe this absolution as much as if we heard God's voice from heaven, that we should joyfully comfort ourselves with absolution, and that we should know that through such faith we obtain forgiveness of sins.” Spoken from the human lips of a pastor, the absolution is the very Word of the Lord Himself. We see this from Jesus' words to His disciples in Luke 10:16, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” On Easter evening, the Risen Lord breathed on His apostles, saying to them, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:21).
God puts His words on the lips of His pastors. And by these words, whether in private confession or after the general confession during the divine service, He bestows the forgiveness of sins won for the world by the Lamb of God in His suffering and death. More than mere “assurance,” absolution is “the true voice of the Gospel.” There are signs that private confession is being restored to its rightful place as the ordinary means of pastoral care in many of our congregations. What's more, an increasing number of pastors are setting aside a specific time each week to hear confession and to absolve sinners of their sins. Accompanied by teaching and preaching that emphasize the benefits and blessings of holy absolution, this is drawing broken sinners to find God's peace and healing in this gift. The goal of recovering the practice of private confession is that Christ Jesus receive all the glory due Him as our only Savior and that we poor sinners receive the full consolation of the forgiveness of sins. “For we also keep confession, especially because of the absolution, which is the word of God that the power of the keys proclaims to individuals by divine authority. It would therefore be wicked to remove private absolution from the church. And those who despise private absolution understand neither the forgiveness of sins nor the power of the keys” (Ap. of the Augsburg Confession, Article XII).
Confession and absolution extol the potency of God's Word and the blood of His Son over our sin.
“When ministers lay on their hands,
Absolved by Christ the sinner stands;
He who by grace the Word believes
The purchase of his blood receives”
--LW #235, v. 6
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W.W.J.D.?
You have probably seen the above initials on a T-shirt or a wristband or some other knick-knack. These letters (which stand for “What Would Jesus Do?”) have become very popular items on “Christian” jewelry and clothing. Where did W.W.J.D. originate? And is this something we should embrace, or is it something we should be wary of?
As far as I can tell, the wearing of a W.W.J.D. bracelet was originally intended to be a witnessing tool. You wear the bracelet, and your unchurched friend asks you what the letters stand for, you tell him, and you therefore have an opportunity to share your faith with him. The problem with this is that “What Would Jesus Do?” has very little to do with the Christian faith.
The letters W.W.J.D. imply that Christianity consists of following certain rules and doing things a certain way just like Jesus did. To put it in Lutheran terms, the focus is on the Law and not the Gospel. It bears witness not to Christ's righteousness but to our own attempts at righteousness and could very easily convey the false message that our works contribute toward our salvation.
Some have suggested that a true witnessing tool would be W.H.J.D., “What Has Jesus Done?” That is, during His life, what did He do which accomplished the redemption of us sinners? A true witnessing tool would focus solely on Christ and His death and resurrection. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
But let us put the best construction on things. Suppose someone was wearing a W.W.J.D. bracelet simply as a visual reminder to themselves that they are Christians and to encourage themselves to lead a God-pleasing life. Should we still be concerned?
I believe the answer is “Yes.” For even here, W.W.J.D. gives a false impression of what the Christian life is.
The Christian life is not me trying real hard to do good things, to be loving, to keep the commandments like Christ did. For the Scriptures say that nothing good dwells within me, and that all my righteous deeds are like filthy rags before God (Romans 7:18; Isaiah 64:6).
Christ is not a new law-giver (John 1:17), and Christian living is not about me trying to figure out what Jesus would do and then doing that.
It’s about dying to myself through daily contrition and repentance and Christ arising in me through faith to lead a life of righteousness and purity.
It’s about my sinful nature being drowned in the waters of baptism and the new life of Jesus coming forth.
To put it in terms of initials, it’s W.I.J.D.? “What is Jesus doing?” How is Jesus working in my life through His Holy Word and precious Sacraments to recreate me and to perform in me the works that He has prepared for me? This draws our attention not to our own efforts but to the Holy Spirit’s gracious working in our lives through the concrete means of Christ’s preaching and His Supper. And these in turn draw our attention the cross, which is the true heart of the Christian faith.
Better than a Christianized marketing gimmick is the holy crucifix of our Lord. Of course, all of this may be a bit passe’ by now. W.W.J.D. is getting old, and so a new set of initials is being introduced: F.R.O.G. I’ll let you figure out the worthiness of this one on your own.
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The Place of Ceremony in the Church
by the Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt
In the course of human events there come various occasions during which the use of ceremony, that is, formality in proceedings, is called for. Great ceremony attends the President's annual State of the Union address, for example. He is announced with great pomp: “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States!” And everyone rises and applauds, as he moves toward the podium for his address. This always takes a few minutes, because he must shake hands with the people in the aisles. Then, when he finally arrives at the podium, the applause finally fades, and the Vice President, who is presiding at this joint session of Congress, speaks first, saying something like: “It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the President of the United States!”--or something very similar, in fact, to the words of the person who had shouted out the president's first introduction moments earlier. And then everyone begins to applaud all over again, and sometimes for a very long time. One might wonder why all this has to happen every time the president gives this address. After all, everybody in the world knows who he is. Yet there he is introduced twice. The reason for all this, then? Ceremony, of course.
Ceremony dictates that certain occasions need great formality, either because of who is present, or because of the moment of the occasion, or both. People tend instinctively to understand the necessity for ceremony at times. Strangely, however, of late there has arisen a startling lack of ceremony in Christian churches everywhere. This is troubling, for it belies a lack of understanding not only of ceremony’s place, but of the reality present in the Divine Service. Certainly, if we understand the need for ceremony when the President is present to speak to the nation, how much more ought we to understand the need for it when Christ Himself is present to speak to His holy Church! Could it be that those who wish to make the Divine Service less formal and ceremonial fail to realize that worship in Spirit and truth is indeed an occasion in which Christ enters the holy place, opens His holy mouth, and speaks? Not only so, but He really sits among us, on the altar, in the Sacrament.
Consider for a moment, which kinds of churches have great ceremony, and which tend to have less: those whose worship would be considered very formal and ornamented--Romans Catholics, High Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, and some Lutherans--all hold something very much in common, in spite of the differences between them: they all share a profound belief that the Sacrament is no symbol or representation, but really and truly is the body and blood of Christ.
But the churches which of late have preferred a more folksy style, or even a style full of the trappings of entertainment (clowns, balloons, rock bands, flashy Gospel choirs, costumes, etc.) tend to be Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and sadly, some Lutherans. In these churches there is, not surprisingly, also a shared belief that the Sacrament is nothing but an extra, a symbol of some kind, or simply an ordinance of God, whose motions we must go through for no other reason than that He said we should. Even in the Lutheran churches where such tomfoolery is found, there is always upon investigation, a woefully weak understanding of just what is meant by “This is my body.”
If anyone does not share this belief with us, he can easily find a church where the Sacrament is given much lower place, or even omitted altogether. We force no one to believe as we do, certainly; but neither will we be forced to believe anything other than what our Lord says: “This IS my body.”
So let us give heed to the admonition of St. Paul in the matter: “Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed; therefore let us keep the Feast” (I Cor. 5:7-8). For it does not matter what anyone else may say or believe; we know that Christ here gives us His true body and blood; that Christ Himself is truly present here to give us His divine grace; and that, accordingly, if ever there was a time for ceremony, it is first of all in the Divine Service.
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